Rosberg went into the closing weeks of his 2016 championship “absolutely terrified” of throwing it all away. Watching a 20-year-old Kimi Antonelli lead the 2026 title race by 81 points with nine rounds still to run, the German cannot work out where the fear has gone.
Speaking on Sky Sports F1 after the Spanish Grand Prix, the 2016 champion tried to explain how the pressure had eaten into his own driving.
“We are all human. He’s not superhuman. I was absolutely terrified that it was hard to drive properly. The nearer I got to the end of the season, it was impossible for me to win races or get pole because my brain capacity had so much fear of losing my dream with a stupid mistake or with something which can easily happen.”
He expects the moment to come for the Italian too.
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“At some point he will have to feel that a little bit. But it’s unbelievable so far how solid and mature he is. Even Toto can’t believe it.”
An eighth win, and 81 points clear
Antonelli extended his lead over Russell with an eighth victory of the season at Madring on 13 September, the inaugural Formula 1 race at the new Madrid circuit. He finished ahead of Max Verstappen and Lando Norris after a Virtual Safety Car reshuffled the strategy at the front, while Russell, the closest challenger in the standings, settled for P5.
Wolff finds him almost too relaxed
Toto Wolff has plainly enjoyed the calm, and finds it slightly unnerving too. He told Sky Sports F1 in Madrid that his rookie can be a shade too relaxed.
“I think he’s cool. Sometimes for me, an inch too cool when he brushes the wall, five laps to the end, and comes on to the radio ‘check the car I think I brushed the wall’.”
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Wolff puts the composure partly down to age.
“He gets in the car and just drives. I feel his youth helps him a lot there. He’s 20. He could probably stay in the sport for 20 years.”
Partly, he thinks, it is temperament.
“He’s so above all our expectations. He’s just going with the flow. And there’s a genetic factor, you’re born with cool, cool as a cucumber, or you’re not.”
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The ‘demons’ wait for the closing races
Rosberg’s warning aims at a specific kind of race, the one where the target is not the win but the points. He had said earlier in the season, also on Sky F1, that the closing rounds are when the “demons” start talking.
“Anybody in his situation, as the season goes on, you start to reflect ‘my goodness, my dream is within reach’ and the demons in your head tell you ‘you better not mess this up, it’s yours to lose’ and that repeats and gets louder and louder.”
Mercedes gave Antonelli exactly that kind of brief in Madrid, Wolff told reporters.
“He’s just doing his thing. We told him, ‘This is a race where we need to bring it home, need to score points whether it’s P2 or P5, we don’t care, just drive it home’. He does that and goes fast.”
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The next test is in Baku. The Azerbaijan Grand Prix runs on Saturday 26 September, moved forward from Sunday 27 September to avoid a national day of mourning.
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